Yes, I went all doom and gloom yesterday. I worry that the pervasive corruption that the Democrat party has inflicted on the American government and on American political society does not bode well for an honest election outcome. Having said that, I realized that the most corrupt part of this entire election is the media’s successful effort to have us focus obsessively on the candidates, so as to obscure actual issues.

The two campaigns are driven by competing core visions of America: Globalism and patriotism. It is those ideas, not the two reprehensible candidates, that voters must address in the 2016 election.

Hillary’s globalist presidency will mark the finish line of the “fundamental change” that Obama has started. After her election, we will live in a post-constitutional America that

You know what those of us who are not opera fans really hate about opera? We hate the fact that, after the heroine has been dealt the fatal blow, it still takes her another half hour of frantic soprano singing before she dies. I suspect that the attenuated operatic death scene will be an apt metaphor for the last 27 days of America’s 2016 election cycle. Trump and his supporters are still singing as loudly and as strongly as they can, but the death-blow has already been dealt.

You see, it’s become very apparent that the American media has been sitting on information that might have affected the outcome of the Republican primaries. Had the media been genuinely interested in reporting the news and/or in ensuring that each party offered its finest candidate to the American people, the stories of Trump’s behavior towards women would have been in the news during the peak of the primary season.

The media, however, was not interested in serving America and its democracy. It was interested only in ensuring that Hillary, the most corrupt, incompetent person ever to run for president, would be facing the most vulnerable candidate possible. So, during the primaries, the media gave Trump all the airtime necessary to build him up and now it’s again giving him all the airtime necessary . . . only this time it’s releasing a steady stream of deadly poison that is the equivalent of the poison the precedes the last half hour of the soprano’s tragic, but lyrical, end.

If the latest groping/kissing allegations against Trump hold up – and I assume they will, based on quantity if not credibility – it won’t matter what Wikileaks says about Clinton. She will win easily.

[snip]

Hillary Clinton is all yours, ladies. She and her alleged rapist husband are your brand now. Wear them well.

The same female cohort that brought us the scandal-ridden Warren G. Harding administration is on the verge of bringing us a Hillary administration that is mired in scandal even before it begins. I am, as I often have been in the last two decades, incredibly embarrassed to share XX chromosomes with so many morons.

Charlie Kirk’s hypothesis about millennials forces one to reach much the same conclusion about them that Adams reached about women: The young Bernie supporters who cannot get excited about Hillary have been trained like Pavlov’s dogs to get excited about accusations of men engaged in sexual misconduct. While they wouldn’t vote for Hillary, now that she fits into their hardwired victim algorithm, they will turn out in droves to punish Trump.

Two other things lead me to believe we’re in the last half-hour of an opera that ends with all the good people scattered about dead on the stage:

I have a hefty batch of links related to the election and the culture wars raging in America. I’ll try to write just enough to pique your interest so that you follow those links or watch the videos:

The reason the Left opposes photo ID for voting.James O’Keefe, who is Andrew Breitbart’s true heir, has a horrifying video showing a surprisingly honest, indeed decent, New York Democratic election commissioner bemoaning the terrible corruption that plagues New York voting, speaking of van loads of people being driven from precinct to precinct on election day to cast multiple votes, and admitting that it’s pure politics that blocks the reasonable use of voter IDs.

Hillary treats people like dirt. Hillary put on her saintly face during the second debate to talk about treating people well. One of the Deplorables has taken issue with Hillary’s pious, and hypocritical, stance. She reminds Hillary of the reprehensible way Hillary treated our troops way back in 2003 — because their hard work savings lives left them dirty.

The Left constantly manufactures crises. Dennis Prager takes the occasion of Trump’s decade-old crude postings to point out that this is yet another in the Left’s endless series of crises that only it can fix through its leadership, its laws, its taxes, its regulations, and its censorship. This type of headline hysteria, especially before a major election, allows the Left to sell falsehoods to Americans through the vehicle of emotion (and we all know how that works now thanks to Scott Adams’ tutelage).

GOP leadership has Stockholm Syndrome. Ace doesn’t use the phrase Stockholm Syndrome but, as he describes the way in which the GOP has bought into all of the Left’s Social Justice Warrior tropes, it’s hard to think of a better description. Republicans are trapped in Washington, D.C., and if they want to survive, they have to adopt their captors’ mindset — something incomprehensible to those Americans still managing to live relatively free, ordinary lives in an increasingly Orwellian America.

Trump is an amateur compared to the Clintons and their Democrat cohorts. I’m seeing Lefty posters going around on Facebook that talk about the fact that Hillary shouldn’t be held responsible for her husband’s actions (rape, assault, regular and workplace harassment) — which would be fine if Hillary hadn’t come out swinging on Bill’s behalf, lying hard and destroying any women between her and ultimate power.

If you take the time, you can look up awful stories about Kennedy orgies (and the possibility that Bobby ordered a hit on Marilyn), Al Gore’s “sex-crazed poodle” attack on a masseuse, Teddy Kennedy’s cold-blooded murder (not the original car accident, but deliberately leaving Mary Jo to drown), LBJ’s filthy language and penile boasting, Anthony Weiner’s sex texts with teens, and on and on. Given that Democrat history, James T. Harris is not about to let dirty words be compared to dirty acts. (Plus, he makes a nice little point about the inherent racism of calling Bill — poor, Southern, sax-playing sex machine — the “first black president.”)

Do you remember back in the day, when we’d sneer “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? Here we are, a couple of generations later, and a few highly vulgar, chauvinistic words from Donald Trump, a known vulgarian, are jettisoning an entire political campaign, leaving one candidate standing: a hard Leftist who has corrupted or failed at everything she’s touched. How did this happen?

If anybody needs to be reminded what I’m talking about, here’s a little rundown of things Hillary has said and done:

While in Little Rock, allegedly turned $1,000 into $100,000 trading in cattle futures . . . in just ten months, having never traded before.

While in Little Rock, was a lawyer for and investor in the corrupt Whitewater real estate dealings — and then destroyed and/or hid legal records to hide that work.

While in the White House, in an effort to pass taxpayer money to friends, fired the entire non-partisan White House travel office, accused them of financial misdealings, and effectively destroyed the life of the head of the travel office.

While in the White House, failed utterly in her assigned task of revamping the American health system.

When leaving the White House, attempted to steal White House property, which she was then forced to return to the American people.

While in the Senate and while in the State Department, authorized her Foundation to accept huge financial donations from nations that have enshrined in law deadly discrimination against women, Jews, Christians, Hindus (and all other religions), and homosexuals.

While in the State Department, “entirely coincidentally,” granted huge favors (including America’s uranium rights) to people or nations that had made significant donations to the Clinton Foundation or had paid obscenely unrealistic speaking fees to Bill Clinton.

While in the State Department, in direct violation of the law, set up an unprotected, unsecured private server through which she ran all State Department business, without regard to national security concerns or the safety of assets in the field.

When her State Department emails were requested, committed felonious spoliation of records by instructing her server manager to destroy them so that they could never be recovered.

While in the State Department, embarked on a “reset” with Russia that resulted in a breakdown of American relations with Russia and gave Putin the go-ahead to invade Ukraine and take over in Syria.

While in the State Department, was the “brains” behind the takedown of Qaddafi, even though he had been neutral since 2007 and even though America’s engagement with Libya violated various laws — a policy that enabled Libya to become an ISIS stronghold.

While in the State Department, ignored regular requests for heightened security at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi and, indeed, switched to less reliable local security.

While in the State Department, ignored frantic requests for aid when an al Qaeda affiliate conducted an attack against the diplomatic and CIA compounds in Benghazi, resulting in the horrific murder of four Americans, including an American ambassador.

While in the State Department, lied to family members of the dead Americans and then to the American public about the nature of the al Qaeda attack, claiming it was just mob rage about a video.

While in the State Department, tried to lend an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise unconvincing narrative by arranging to have the maker of that irrelevant video arrested and imprisoned, which has effectively destroyed his life.

While in the State Department, failed to take advantage of the Green Revolution that could have weakened the Mullahs’ hold in Iran (and, we now know, she did so as part of Obama’s long-term plan to elevate Iran to a regional hegemonic nuclear power).

While in the State Department, failed to take the opportunity to negotiate a decent status of forces agreement with Iraq, leaving a vacuum that ISIS and Iran have filled.

While in the State Department, presided over the escalation of war in Afghanistan, resulting in a dirty little secrets (because the newspapers won’t report it) which is the fact that more troops have died in Afghanistan under Obama than did under Bush.

Laughed gleefully about getting a child rapist to walk. (And please understand that, as a lawyer, I know that once assigned to the case she had an obligation to give the rapist the best representation possible. That’s not the quibble. It’s her joy later that’s unseemly.)

Maligned Jennifer Flowers as a liar when the latter claimed an affair with Bill Clinton, knowing that Bill was the liar when he denied the affair.

Maligned Monica Lewinsky as a liar when it came out that Lewinsky had an affair with Bill Clinton and that Bill was the liar when he denied the affair. As an aside, feminists forgave Bill his Lewinsky sins, because abortion: “I’d be happy to give him a blow job just to thank him for keeping abortion legal,” said Nina Burleigh, a former Time correspondent and White House reporter.

Maligned Paula Jones as trailer trash when the latter claimed that Bill Clinton sexually molested her, knowing that Bill was the liar when he denied doing so.

Maligned Kathleen Willey as a liar when the latter claimed that Bill Clinton sexually molested her, knowing that Bill was the liar when he denied doing so.

Is married to a man who, when speaking of women and Hillary, said that “Hillary had eaten more pussy than he had.” (Just a reminder of Hillary’s proximity to locker room talk.)

During her presidential campaign, told “all survivors of sexual assault” not to “let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed and we’re with you.”

Called Paul Fray a “fucking Jew bastard.”

Told a Secret Service agent to “fuck off” in response to his saying “good morning.”

May have a close relationship with Death. Bill and Hillary know a lot of people, of course, but even for people with a big Rolodex, an extraordinary number of their former associates have had unnatural deaths.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump, a known vulgarian and a known lover of women, engaged in vulgar locker room talk about women. It’s the type of talk we know men use — heck, Leftist Hollywood movies love to show men talking to each other in precisely those terms (along with showing endless numbers of nude women).

Suddenly, though, the entire political establishment, including Republicans, is going all Claud Raines (“I’m shocked! Shocked!”). And of course, the usual anti-Trumpers are running around saying, “I told you so.”

Well, gee, thanks a lot. You weren’t able to sell your candidates to Americans when it mattered, and now you’re taking your marbles and refusing to play.

The fact is, many of us (myself included) didn’t support Donald Trump in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc., go round. However, the majority of Republican voters, plus quite a few Democrats, said “We’re sick of the establishment. We’re sick of the GOP leaders who have embraced Leftist values, including the ones who support the Leftist notion that ‘bad’ speech (as defined by the Left) is worse than truly bad actions. We’re sick of Republicans who go to Congress and don’t even bother to fight for America because they’ve already surrendered to the fear of being called “racist.” And lastly, we’re sick of the lying media and the members of the GOP who just let them lie.”

Those angry Americans nominated Trump, so you know what I did even though he was my last choice? I made the best of it. Because even the worst of Trump’s vulgar boasts and childish self-regard are still better than Hillary’s endless list of awfuls. And while we’re talking about awfuls, this is the same political establishment, Democrat and Republican, for years lionized a stone-cold murderer — that would be Edward Kennedy, who intentionally left a woman to die in his car so that he could protect his career.

Stick and stones will break America’s bones when those sticks and stones take the form of an unending stream of corruption, bad decisions, incompetence, and foul ideology that seeks to pack the Supreme Court with Leftists and do away with First and Second Amendment rights. Words, on the other hand, will not hurt if those words are merely gross statements from an old-fashioned vulgarian who likes to boast about women. And think about this: If he’d been French, the Europhiles on the Left would probably have given Trump a pass. Just sayin.’

And last but not least, I’m disgusted by and sick of the Bush family. Since a Bush scion was involved, I have no doubt that it was the Bush crew that has been sitting on the tape waiting for the perfect time to spring it. Fine, Jeb. Your little feelings were hurt because Trump insulted you and you lost. If you can’t get over that, feel free to take your feelings out on Trump, not on America — which is what you did by virtually ensuring a Hillary presidency. A pox on you, you mewly-mouthed, vindictive little anti-American weasel!

The Leftists I know have been crowing joyously for 24 hours now about Trump’s locker room talk — and believe me, I’ve heard worse from many of them Leftist. My Facebook feed is awash in Leftist crowing.

But you know what happens when I ask one of them, as I have for the last three months, to name one thing Hillary has achieved other than leveraging herself into jobs using her husband’s name and fame? He has no answer. He explains that, because she’s always been a team player, you can’t point to any one thing she’s accomplished. He notes that he hasn’t studied her career closely, nevermind that she’s been trying to sell herself and her career to Americans for more than a year now.

Lastly he says this is an unfair question because nobody can really answer it. And you know what? He’s right. No one can answer it because Hillary hasn’t accomplished jackshit. I’ll take a gross patriot over a corrupt, incompetent Leftist any and every day.

UPDATE: A friend reminded me that all that Trump has done is to embrace Leftist sexual values — and he’s never run on a morality platform. For the Left to go all Puritan is laughable.

I hate open primaries. In a post a few years ago, I explained why, and I’ll repeat myself here:

The point of the primary system is to give citizens who are members of a specific political party the opportunity to pick that candidate who best represents their views. Then, in the Fall season, those cherry-picked party candidates get to go head-to-head, giving voters a genuine ideological choice. This is important even in states that tilt heavily in one direction or the other, because it means that, when voters are actually paying attention, they are exposed to more than just the majority party’s viewpoint.

In other words, if an Open Primary state tilts heavily in favor of one party or the other, the minority party isn’t just precluded from winning (and this holds true even if the majority party has some major scandal over the summer that causes its total collapse). . . it is also entirely denied a voice in the marketplace of political ideas. Without a candidate on the ballot, the minority party has no commercials, no debates, no opinion pieces, and no candidate interviews.

The one thing that didn’t occur to me when I wrote the list of horribles that result from open primaries was the possibility that, in the interim between the primary and the election, the formerly dominant party loses favor. As it is, that’s what’s slowly happening in this election:

Whew! Having watched some of the vice presidential debate, we now know what happened to the leftover amphetamines from Hillary’s first debate night, when they were put to good use propping her up for 90 minutes. We know that Hillary swallowed some of the extras, or else she couldn’t have rendered her “why aren’t I 50 points ahead?” masterpiece, but some were definitely set aside for tonight’s Democrat performance at the debate.

If you were to take Chip or Dale, of Disney chipmunk fame, and feed them a meal of coffee and amphetamines, they’d sound just like Tim Kaine. The guy is so wired I’m surprised his skin still fits him. Also, and this is a mean comment on his looks, but I became weirdly fascinated by his jaw and mouth. They look like something one would see on a ventriloquist’s dummy. The flapping jaw and smile that never reaches his eyes are weirdly disconnected, in an almost psychopathic way. I would not want to meet this man in a dark alley. He’s Joe Biden, only more vicious.

Poor Governor Pence has been left trying to thread a very fine needle: Make his campaign points or quiet the pit bull puppy savaging his ankles just so that he (Pence) can get a word in edgewise. Worse, Pence is not being helped by the breathy bimbo with the false eyelashes (hard to believe, but she’s apparently the moderator) who keeps cutting Pence off while giving Kaine more time for his sound byte attacks.

To the extent that Pence has been allowed to speak, he’s made sense. Too often, though, Kaine has spoken over him, babbling incomprehensible and repetitive insults, making it impossible to hear what Pence is saying. If Kaine were in my kindergarten class, I’d tell his mother he’s incorrigible, possibly damaged, and cannot return to the room until he’s learned some self-control.

Honestly? I had to stop watching 30 minutes into the debate. But I misspoke. What these two were having was not a “debate” in the understood term of two people confronting each other with their ideas and arguments. Instead, under the aegis of said bimbo, it was a bad cartoon, with Kaine as the unfunny funny guy and Pence as the beleaguered straight man. It is a perfect metaphor for how debased our politics have become.

I will read the debate tomorrow when I can filter out Hopped-Up Kaine and Breathy Bimbo and, instead, focus on what Kaine and Pence had to say. For now, please consider this an open thread and toss in whatever comments you like regarding this national embarrassment.

For more Veep debate coverage, be sure to check out WOW! Magazine, the online collaborative magazine from the Watcher’s Council and its friends. I know there will be posts up tomorrow about the debate.

I expended most of my authorial energy today attacking PBS’s Frontline showThe Choice 2016, which purported to delve into Hillary’s and Donald’s character to help inform people in advance of the election but which was, in fact, a Hillary hagiography and a Donald hit piece. Still, there are a few more election-related articles I’d like to share with you.

Fact checkers are disguised Progressive advocates. One of my hopes in writing my challenge to the PBS “documentary” is to expose the fact that, even when the Left purports to deal in truth it lies. Nowhere is this point made more obvious than when it comes to the whole genre of fact checkers, almost all of whom are hardcore Progressives. Don Surber makes this point patently obvious when he looks at the way fact-checkers handled Bernie’s statements about black unemployment and Donald’s more accurate statements about the same issue. Fact-checkers are deliberately manipulating data in advance of the election.

Speaking of Don Surber and media bias, I’ve been wanting to tell you forever that you should buy Don’s meticulously researched book retelling the way in which the media — including many in the conservative media, I’m sorry to say (myself included) — were completely wrong every step of the way during the Republican primaries. Don saw from the beginning that Trump was mapping out a new route to the nomination.

The word people, however, the ones to whom exquisitely chosen phrases matter most of all, as well as the usual Leftist political hacks, who cannot understand fed-up Americans, couldn’t see that at all. With almost six weeks left before the election, Don’s book will help you understand what you’re reading in both mainstream and conservative media. The books is called Trump the Press: Don Surber’s take on how the pundits blew the 2016 Republican race, and is priced at a very reasonable $2.99.

Tuesday night, PBS’s Frontline premiered The Choice 2016, which purported to be a documentary examining the lives and careers of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. It was not, in fact, an honest documentary. It was a savage hit piece, using a patina of documentary sobriety to hide its core dishonesty.

To appreciate just how awful it was, you have to know a bit about Frontline. It’s a long-running show that always focuses on very serious subjects. Whether at home or abroad, it’s viewpoint is hard Left, although it will never acknowledge that it has a bias. Indeed, to prove that it is unbiased, it is, as I said, very, very serious. It always has grim music and the regular narrator, Will Lyman, has the deep, slow, serious, mostly uninflected voice of an aspiring funeral home director. How can something be biased if it’s both serious and sober?

Frontline is once again demonstrating how indispensable it is with “The Choice 2016,” a two-hour documentary that methodically chronicles the lives of presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

So many words have been devoted to the candidates that one could easily conclude there’s nothing much left to say. But “The Choice” adopted a parallel structure — oscillating between the two biographies — that proves illuminating as it cuts back and forth to highlight their paths from adolescence to, for one, the White House.

[snip]

This sober endeavor stands in stark contrast to the coverage these candidates frequently receive in other broadcast venues. That’s especially true in primetime, during which network news magazines continue to tilt toward true crime and tawdry tales of missing persons and spouses killing each other.

In that regard, Frontline represents a dispassionate forum, but not a boring one — in productions such as this, neatly distilling complex issues down to their essence.

I have no doubt that CNN’s encomiums derive in large part because the show is a hagiography of Hillary Clinton and a hit piece against Donald Trump.

Well, I’ve watched the whole damn show and there’s nothing sober and balanced about it (although I did find it boring). The parallel structure is used to emphasize relentlessly Hillary’s good qualities and Donald’s bad ones. If you want to watch it yourself, be my guest. Otherwise, if you read on, you’ll see that I’ve summarized the whole show. Reading my summary will save two hours of your life and allow you to spend them in more enjoyable ways.

I look away for a couple of days, and WOW! Magazine, the Watcher’s Council’s collaborative online magazine, simply explodes with content, all of it good.

And remember, as you look at these articles, being informed matters. If you’re not informed, you’re like the dopes who watch PBS Frontline’s recent “documentary” about the two candidates and come away believing that Hillary is a brilliant saint, while Donald is a psychopath from the cradle. It is one of the most duplicitous pieces of propaganda I’ve ever seen, presented in a staid, scholarly way. I’ll try to write more about it tomorrow. Meanwhile, if you want to see taxpayer-funded pro-Hillary propaganda (and you have a strong stomach), you can find it here.

I scored Trump as the victor in the debate because he did what he needed to persuade, whereas Hectoring Hillary’s “teacher’s pet” stylings and grackle voice were offputting. Here’s are some excerpts from what other commentators have to say about Trump and Hillary. What a lot of them have in common is something I noted, which is that Hillary emitted “fried air” — a bunch of orotund phrases that meant nothing.

Many commentators on the right — I included — are thoroughly colonized by leftist memes. How could we not be? We are constantly mesmerized by them, a thousand cult chants a day whispering at us from our electric soma boxes.

Many are looking at Hillary Clinton’s answers and saying “She won on points.”

Did she?

Because what did she really say? On national security and ISIS, she offered the novel thought that we must work more closely with our allies.

I tried to watch the debate, not as a politics nerd who is up on a lot of data, but based on what I’ve learned about persuasion techniques from reading Scott Adams’ posts. This meant tuning out a lot of the words and focusing on the key points Hillary and Donald made during the debate. With that in mind, here are my impressions:

Hillary: Very prepared. Best little girl in the classroom. Teacher’s pet. Hectoring voice of an angry mother figure or your nagging ex-wife. Condescending. I found her debate performance offputting, but I’m biased.

Hillary announced that she had a plan about everything. No details, just plans. When I did listen to what Hillary was actually saying, I kept thinking, “This is just another four years of Obama.”

Hillary was greatly helped by Lester Holt, who asked Donald about the tax returns but quickly glossed over Hillary’s server and deleted emails (and asked no meaningful follow-up questions when Trump brought it up), and framed things from the Leftist point of view (income inequality, wages higher, etc.).

Hillary struck me as simultaneously incredibly prepared and completely empty. I thought she made a terrible mistake when she said everyone is racist. I don’t think of myself as racist and I bet you don’t think of yourself that way either. She’s one giant talking point.

Ted Cruz announced yesterday that he will, in fact, be voting for Donald Trump. In the Facebook post explaining his decision to vote for a man who treated him and his family brutally during the primaries, Cruz made the same points I’ve been making for months: First, that Hillary is infinitely worse than Trump could ever be and, second, that Trump has been carefully refining his campaign promises to assure Americans that he’ll put on the brakes before Hillary takes us over the same cliff that Obama has relentlessly edged us towards for the past eight years. Here are Cruz’s key points, although I do urge you to read the whole thing:

Six key policy differences inform my decision. First, and most important, the Supreme Court. For anyone concerned about the Bill of Rights — free speech, religious liberty, the Second Amendment — the Court hangs in the balance.

[snip]

Second, Obamacare. The failed healthcare law is hurting millions of Americans. If Republicans hold Congress, leadership has committed to passing legislation repealing Obamacare. Clinton, we know beyond a shadow of doubt, would veto that legislation. Trump has said he would sign it.

Third, energy. Clinton would continue the Obama administration’s war on coal and relentless efforts to crush the oil and gas industry. Trump has said he will reduce regulations and allow the blossoming American energy renaissance to create millions of new high-paying jobs.

Fourth, immigration. Clinton would continue and even expand President Obama’s lawless executive amnesty. Trump has promised that he would revoke those illegal executive orders.

Fifth, national security. Clinton would continue the Obama administration’s willful blindness to radical Islamic terrorism. She would continue importing Middle Eastern refugees whom the FBI cannot vet to make sure they are not terrorists. Trump has promised to stop the deluge of unvetted refugees.

Sixth, Internet freedom. Clinton supports Obama’s plan to hand over control of the Internet to an international community of stakeholders, including Russia, China, and Iran. Just this week, Trump came out strongly against that plan, and in support of free speech online.

These are six vital issues where the candidates’ positions present a clear choice for the American people.

There are roughly six weeks between now and the election — and in those states that allow early voting, people are already casting their votes. We have very little time left within which people can make a choice between preserving what’s left of America or starting a Venezuela slide. At the beginning of August, I analogized our situation to that in The Bridge over the River Kwai. When a Facebook friend posted that the movie was being shown on PBS in our area, I went back, looked at the post, and decided that it’s good enough for a replay, although edited somewhat for clarity:

I can’t say too much lest I breach Little Bookworm’s privacy, but suffice it to say that, after only two weeks at her Obscenely Expensive Liberal Arts College, she has already taken a giant step in the direction of moronic, damaging Leftism. I have refrained from berating her because that would be counterproductive. Instead, I provided her with objective information about the direction she has taken and she, with all the confident arrogance of an uninformed youngster, has refused to reconsider. I’m not feeling the love today.

I hope blogging helps me vent my spleen. Otherwise, if you read tomorrow that a woman suffered a deadly attack of spontaneous combustion during the night . . . well, that just might be me.

Preachy Leftist “comedians” may be harming Hillary. Mr. Bookworm adored Jon Stewart and was endlessly certain that, if I just sat and watched for a while, I’d be riotously amused and return to the Democrat fold. His confidence in Stewart’s powers of persuasion was misplaced. I found Stewart intentionally both ill-informed and dishonest.

When Stewart resigned, Mr. Bookworm transferred his allegiance to John Oliver and Samantha Bee, both of whom are even harder Left than Stewart, and both of whom have the same shtick: They say something insulting about a Republican or conservative, following it with a strained analogy, and then pause for the adoring audience’s laughter. It’s like a call-and-repeat in the Church of Leftism.

Mr. Bookworm has suggested that I lack a sense of humor, which may well be true. I prefer a bit of wit and intelligence to flavor political insults, so I’m probably expecting too much from the current generation of humorists. I, on the other hand, have tried suggesting to him that these smug Leftist harridans simply aren’t funny.

The culture industry has always tilted leftward, but the swing toward social liberalism among younger Americans and the simultaneous surge of activist energy on the left have created a new dynamic, in which areas once considered relatively apolitical now have (or are being pushed to have) an overtly left-wing party line.

[snip]

First, within the liberal tent, they have dramatically raised expectations for just how far left our politics can move, while insulating many liberals from the harsh realities of political disagreement in a sprawling, 300-plus million person republic. Among millennials, especially, there’s a growing constituency for whom right-wing ideas are so alien or triggering, left-wing orthodoxy so pervasive and unquestioned, that supporting a candidate like Hillary Clinton looks like a needless form of compromise.

Thus Clinton’s peculiar predicament. She has moved further left than any modern Democratic nominee, and absorbed the newer left’s Manichaean view of the culture war sufficiently that she finds herself dismissing almost a quarter of the electorate as “irredeemable” before her donors. Yet she still finds herself battling an insurgency on her left flank, and somewhat desperately pitching millennials on her ideological bona fides.

Isn’t that just delicious? All I can say is, from Douthat’s essay to God’s ear.

The establishment is very afraid of Donald Trump. Thomas Lifson is correct that it is outrageous for U.S. “Intelligence” officials to try to sabotage Trump’s campaign by saying they’re afraid to give him intelligence briefings. This would be despicable under any circumstances, but it’s especially grotesque considering that the only reason Hillary is not rotting in prison for treasonous high crimes and misdemeanors is because the President is protecting her (probably because she knows his secrets, just as he knows hers).

What’s really disgraceful about this already disgraceful spectacle is that these establishment types seem to have forgiven Hillary the whole Benghazi debacle, from the mismanagement before; to the vanishing act during, which almost certainly cost four lives; to the cover-up after. Others have not forgotten:

Ann Coulter takes on those accusing Trump of racism. Ann is in fine, sarcastic fettle as she flushes out the cowards (on the Right) and race hustlers (on the Left) who are attacking Trump:

Let me say up front that this column is not an embodiment of Godwin’s law, since I won’t say a thing here about Trump’s policy positions. I’m writing only because something Thomas Sowell wrote reminded me of an interesting historical fact that few people know about the elections that led to Nazi Germany.

Sowell’s most recent column attacks what he calls “the voice of the people fallacy,” under which Trump and his supporters assume that they speak for the majority of Republican voters:

We hear many fallacies in election years. The fallacy that seems to be most popular this year is that, if Donald Trump comes close to getting the 1,237 delegates required to become the Republican nominee, and that nomination goes instead to someone else, then the convention will have ignored “the voice of the people.”

Supposedly Republican voters would be outraged, many would stay home on election day, and some might even vote for the Democrats’ nominee, whether Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

Mr. Trump has more than once made the veiled threat that he would run as a third-party candidate if the Republicans failed to “respect” him. And of course Trump would himself decide what “respect” means.

Insofar as the voting public believes the fallacy that choosing someone other than Trump is ignoring “the voice of the people,” when Trump has the most delegates, his threat carries weight.

It’s this belief — that Trump holds the majority of Republican voters in the palm of his hand — that is behind Drudge’s headlines about Cruz stealing primaries and the threat of chaos at an unprecedented contested convention. Before I turn to the “voice of the people fallacy,” let me quickly address the “Cruz stealing delegates” and “unprecedented contested convention” fallacies.